So I am writing this in hopes that there will be something said that keeps me hanging on for another day. I won't go into the whole legal situation of what I am dealing with now but I will say a few months ago I was working my job on a busy med-surg/telemetry floor on the busiest and probably most understaffed floor of our Trauma 1 and largest hospital in the state. I had a patient who had a medication prescribed by a physician who probably was suffering from an immense amount of fatigue and it wasn't communicated between various teams that were providing care for him, and the medication was started by me. There are many circumstances revolving around this decision including not only the doctor ordering it, verifying it, but also the team of trauma doctors on her side, the pharmacist, and finally, that last safety net, me. I called in and talked to in person the attending consulting physician with this patient that day who later on in the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) claimed she never saw the order in the MAR or it physically hanging and she "always checks this". Well the charting proved differently but nonetheless even after the autopsy proved otherwise 2 months later, I still felt responsible. I felt this way for 2 months and just because the autopsy proved otherwise it didn't go away. I had sought out a Primary Care Physician and Psychologist with the help of my manager to help me through this time. While it helped, I don't think there is anything that could have stopped me from feeling responsible. Anyway, after a long FMLA leave of absence since I knew it wasn't safe for me to take care of patients in that state, I came back to a horrible shift of 5 aggressive and very agitated patients, 2 of which required sitters, and I made a mistake of overlooking putting wasted vials of IV ativan in my pocket. They were empty, we have double rooms and during the night (which most of the the time I work days but my PTO had run out so I worked a day shift and then picked up a night ) if the room is close to the nursing station, sometimes I put the vial in the larger sharps container there. This is what I meant to do and due to the craziness of the shift, I forgot.
I understand that people will probably think I am just denying my problem, but I am not doing that and believe me nothing you say is going to make me feel worse than I am already feeling. I know just having the vials made me eligible for termination, I know I screwed up hugely. I actually had been prescribed Ativan after the incident happened and will admit there were nights I would take one and it wouldn't be enough to suppress the anxiety so I would drink something with it, but I was prescribed it and I know this isn't the appropriate use for it but that is when I came clean with my therapist and have been seeing them very frequently to help with everything. If you have anything negative to say please don't comment, I've had barely any support and I have done my research, I know what you think of a story like mine. I'm not asking you to believe me but maybe have some guidance on what I should do next? I have hired a lawyer and self-reported and just waiting. Should I even try to apply for jobs? Is it a hopeless case? Right now I don't feel like there is any coming back from this but want to assure myself that I did try everything in my power. Thank you!
